All of Niklas Lehmann's Comments + Replies

My suggestion would be to get peers with actual topic-relevant knowledge to review funding proposals. 

I am not sure whether this is currently done, but it is standard practice in governmental science funding. 

I understand that it is the funders decision to collect peer reports, but I guess it is an easy way to spot projects that are targeted towards funders, not impact.

Hi Robert, thanks for answering. I would like to add two more points to what you already said: 

1. To get more bang for relatively little organising, why not get just a few air filters for those rooms which are most crowded? 100+ air filters seem indeed like a lot (I calculated with 12).

2. It would perhaps be easier to get data on the health benefit related to reducing indoor air pollution. There are plenty of studies on this, I will try to find a good one. This alone may be sufficient to justify the expense. Reducing respiratory diseases would come on top. 

I would like to see this discussion re-ignited. I got sick at EAGxBerlin2024, ironically missing a talk on „The economic value of reducing indoor infections“, which argues that UVC-lamps are a very cost-effective measure for indoor gatherings (https://www.d-fine.com/en/news/reducing-indoor-infections/). 

I understand that it is difficult to estimate the effect of indoor air quality improvements to EA events (which include reduced air pollution AND reduced pathogen load), because these events may be different from what has been studied in the past, e.g.... (read more)

Thank you so much! This helps me make a decision.

Thanks Ren for this in-depth article. This is pure gold! Btw: I happened to read something related a couple of days ago: why-you-should-publish-your-research-in-academic-fashion. Maybe you should ask the author to link to your post?

Also: You have written "paper" instead of "journal" on the first line of your subsection Open access mega journals.

 

Thanks so much for the review! I would like to add that there is some evidence that simple acupressure mats help alleviate low back pain.

Thank you for writing this blogpost! 

I wondered whether you also specifically looked at population decline in developed countries? I would have thought that the most interesting question would be along the lines: Could demographic collapse in developed countries lead to decreased civilizational resilience? As trammell pointed out: Developed countries seem to be prone to population decline in the next century, particularly if the social trend to have fewer babies continues. I think it is also a bit misleading to talk about changes in total world population when the composition of this population is changing across time too. 

Thank you for writing up a well-researched article. Although I am skeptical that this would meet the effectiveness threshold for top funds, this might be of interest to local funds. I can imagine that local governments are willing to spend significant amounts on such a problem. Yet only if they are confident in alleviating the problem. However, the problem gets increasing attention.  Stray dogs seem to be an issue in other countries such as Romania as well.

I find your conclusion " [...] an economic cost of 3 Billion USD every year. The economic cost o... (read more)

I agree strongly! It would be interesting to research how economists have looked upon the creation of the internet. I guess that there is in fact little research on how the internet would change the world pre-1990. 

Thank you for publishing this post. In which way is this different from what Optimism tries to achieve? Also, what if the public good is difficult to monitor? It is hard to observe reductions in existential risk. How will the protocol pay out if there is large uncertainty regarding the effects of an intervention, even afterwards?

Exactly. Such problems are similar in nature. But it is important to point out that in such cases bilateral or multilateral agreements can be found relatively quickly (and have been in the past - see e.g. Rhine pollution treaty), whereas geoengineering needs a global treaty which is much harder to craft.

I largely agree! 

Hey John, thank you for the article! I feel that there is substantial confusion regarding whether to delay or even accelerate research into SRM and similar stuff. 

The argument against researching geoengineering methods seems to be that having SRM available in the short-term would do more harm than good.  However, this makes the fundamental assumption that research enables geoengineering in the first place. In my view, the "how to" deploy geoengineering is already public. Deployment (unilateral or not) could happen now.

If one assumes the „informat... (read more)

Wouldn´t this problem be solvable by creating a database/network of existing consultants, freelancers etc. that have a background in effective altruism? Then, whenever needed, you could assemble a team from this network and just pay their regular employers.

Also, this might in some cases be accepted as (price reduced) pro-bono work. And you would get free advertisement for EA Orgs on top.   

My initial hunch is that the amount of work that is EA-specific is not sufficiently big enough to run a EA-dedicated consultancy, especially if you consider th... (read more)

There is a german author (Andreas Eschbach) who incorporates true science into his (imo great) fiction novels to spread awareness especially of potentially dangerous technologies. For example, in his book "Der Herr aller Dinge/ Lord of all things" he outlines the potential dangers of atomic scale manufacturing. The book is also available in English.

Hey Michael, I am sad to find out that the web app seems to be down. Have you planned to rebuild it ?

I thought that was exactly what Metaculus has been established for. In which way is this different ?

I often find it very depressing to deeply think about suffering focused ethics. You have written yourself that it might be natural not to give too much thought to extreme suffering because too much of it may cause damage to your psyche. Have you found a way to reframe your thinking about suffering focused topics so that they do not seem so dark compared to a moral view that is highly motivated by positive feelings or a distant utopia ?